Frog

by Stephen Dixon

  “Shh, go back to your snoring,” man whose back he’s against says. “It wasn’t as loud.”

  “What’s going on? What is it with this train?”

  “And I’m going to tell you? Don’t worry, it’ll all turn out bad. Ha-ha, that’s a good one. Sorry, go to sleep. Don’t be afraid to, the ride’s for a couple more days at least. Believe me, we’re all here who were here, even the ones who aren’t dead yet. Sorry again. I can’t help myself. I don’t know what I’m saying. I don’t even know if I said anything. Did I?”

  “Shh, you too,” someone says. “You’re making more noise than him now.”

  “Denise?” Howard yells.

  “What’s with this guy?” someone else says. “Hey, pipe down.”

  “We’re over here,” she says. “Directly across the car from you. The girls are all right, sleeping now. People were kind enough to let us move near the pail so the girls could relieve themselves right into it. You were sleeping. You wouldn’t budge. Rest, dear. Take care of yourself. In the morning come over.”

  He gets up. “Excuse me,” he says, feeling bodies with his hands and feet. Stepping on someone. “Get off me,” a woman says.

  “I’m sorry, really. But I want to get to my wife and children.”

  “You’ll see them in the morning like she says.”

  “Stay where you are…. Go back to where you were…. You’re upsetting everything,” other people say.

  “No, now, please, I have to. This might be my last chance before the train pulls in.”

  “Last chance nothing. Your foot’s on my hand.” He lifts his foot and puts it down on someone else’s or this same man’s hand. “Just go back to your spot, will you? Ah, it’s likely already filled by three others. Come on, someone light a candle. Let this man get to his family.”

  Car stays dark. “Come on,” the man says, “someone break down and light a candle. This is Grisha Bischoff talking. If it’s because you don’t want to spare a match, I’ll loan you.”

  A candle’s lit about twenty feet away. Little he can see, car’s packed full with bundles and people sleeping. Some look at him, one eye, then blink shut. “Over here,” Denise says, waving at him. “Excuse me, excuse me,” he says. “My wife.”

  “Better to crawl over rather than step,” a woman below him says.

  “Right, I just wanted to be quick.” Gets down, crawls over people. It takes a long time. “I’m sorry, he says. “I’m very sorry.” Someone punches his back as he passes. “Imbecile,” a man says. “Let him be,” someone else says. “He got permission. Maybe his kids need him like he says.” “They need him, I need him—when you’re split up you’re sunk and that’s final, but you have to make it hell for everybody else? OK, OK, I’ll get out of his way.”

  He gets to Denise. “I’m here, thank you, you can put out the candle, whoever it was.” Candle goes out.

  “There’s only room for one adult here,” Denise says, on her knees. “Olivia’s in a space for someone half her size. Eva’s been on my chest. I’ll make room somehow.”

  “Excuse me,” he says, feeling for the person next to them and nudging his shoulder. “Could you just give us one or two inches?”

  “There’s no room to,” the man says. “I don’t have enough for my family or myself. Go back to your place. It was bad enough when she and your kids came here.”

  “I can’t. I’ll never get back. Thanks all the same.” He feels for Olivia, picks her up, takes her spot, makes himself small, lays her facedown on him, feels for Denise’s head, “It’s me,” he says, kisses her lips, for a while his lips stay on hers without moving, says “I didn’t believe this just before. That we were here. I didn’t know where I was, is more like it. Suddenly I was a kid, it seemed—a lost one. Parents gone; no brothers. In the dark, literally and the rest of it. I felt crazy. All I wanted was for you to be—”

  “Go to sleep, my darling. Try to.”

  “I wish I could. We sleep most of the day; how could anyone sleep now? And the infection in my finger’s killing me. When I crawled over I bumped it a dozen times and it now feels twice the size it was. It’s a small inconvenience, and so what about the pain compared to all the other things, but if I can’t soak and treat it it’ll—”

  “We’ll try to do something in the morning. Maybe we can get some hot water, for your finger and to wash the girls. Sleep, though. We have a few hours to.”

  He kisses her, closes his eyes, head on her shoulder, one arm holding Olivia close, other on Eva’s back. Very cold. Smell of shit and piss is worse here than where they were. The fucking slop pail. She had to move here? But the girls won’t soil their clothes or less so than if they were over there. “If there was only something I could do for us.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like everything.”

  “Right now there’s nothing. Just stay close. No heroics unless it’s a sure thing for us. Stay with us till the end. Wake up when I ask you. Help me keep the girls in a good mood. But now, sleep; not another word.”

  He doesn’t sleep. Snoring of a woman close by keeps him up. Smells and cold. Weight of Olivia. Wailing every so often from people. Weeping, coughing, babies crying. Someone shouting, someone talking in his sleep. But Denise and the girls seem to sleep.

  They go on like this for days. People die. No food except a little for the children. Some people share it. Olivia and Eva are always hungry and thirsty and complain and cry a lot about it. A bucket of water for the whole car is given them once a day. Bischoff distributes it in spoonfuls. Howard’s finger gets so swollen that he jabs it into a nail in the wall and keeps sucking it and it starts healing. There’s a slit in the door and someone during the day is usually telling the car what the weather and scenery are like. Now it’s hilly, now it’s flat. Lots of big clouds in the sky, but nothing threatening. More people die. Corpses are piled on top of one another in a corner and what little hay can be found is strewn over them. The bottom ones begin to smell. Now it’s clear out, now it’s sleeting and looks as if it’ll turn into snow. Some people seem to pray all day and night now. Train stops, goes, pulls into stations, drags along mostly, stays still for hours sometimes, one time for an entire night. They pass a pretty village, an oil refinery that goes on for miles, farmers working in fields. “Potatoes they’re trying to dig out that they might’ve missed,” the slit-watcher says. “Turnips, cabbages, even a carrot or two. Sounds good, right? Look, a farmer’s waving his pick at us. Hello, you lucky stiff. Look, a dog’s running to the train. Do you kids hear him bark?” Nobody answers. Sunny, rainy. Denise and the girls sleep most of the time now. Olivia always seems to run a low fever and he’s afraid it’ll suddenly go out of control at night and she’ll die. The slop pail’s filled and starts running over. Some people talk of killing themselves. Bischoff gives an order. “Nobody kills himself. If you got pills or stuff that can do it, give them to me to use on someone who’s really suffering or about to die. But we should be at the place soon we’re going to and then let’s hope it’ll all be much better for us and most of us are even able to stay together as a group. Does anyone have some good stories to tell? Dreams, but interesting ones we can all appreciate? Then anything you want to make up for us or poems you remember from books or school? Does anyone have any food for the children?” Nobody answers. They haven’t had a bucket of water for two days. During one stop someone asks a guard through the slit if they can get some water and also empty the slop pail. “Get rid of it through your hole there,” the guard says. “You got little spoons. It can be done.” “It’ll probably make more of a mess than help us,” Bischoff tells the car, “but what do we got to lose?” The pail’s moved to the door. Denise wants to follow it, but Howard says “We got a good place together and now not such a filthy one, so let’s stay.” Someone’s always spooning out slop through the slit, except at night. Some cardboard’s turned into a funnel and they get rid of the slop faster. The pail keeps running over though, but not as much as before.

&
nbsp; The train stops at a station. “I think this is it,” the slit-watcher says. “Lots of lights, barbed wire and fences. Dogs, soldiers, marching prisoners in stripes who look like they’re on their last leg. I hear lively band music from someplace, but it doesn’t look good.” “Don’t worry, don’t worry,” Bischoff says. “They might be political prisoners you’re seeing; we’re not.” They stay in the station till morning. Most of the groaning and crying’s stopped. More people have died but nobody’s piling them up. “It’s snowing,” the slit-watcher says. “Big flakes, but melting soon as they hit the ground. Plenty of activity outside, everyone being lined up, called to attention, even the dogs. Something’s about to happen. A tall man in a great coat and officer’s cap is pointing to the train.”

  The door suddenly opens and several men and women outside start shouting orders. One tells them to hurry out of the car and leave all their luggage on the platform, a second says to go to this or that truck. “What’s going to happen to us?” Denise says in the car.

  “I don’t know,” Howard says. “There’s air though. Feel it coming in? Olivia, Eva—do you feel it? Already it smells better. Soon toilets, water for drinking and baths.”

  “Have we really got everything planned fully?” Denise whispers to him. “If they tell you to go one place, me another and the girls a third, or just split us up any other way but where we lose you or both of us lose the kids, what should we do?”

  “What can we?”

  “We could say no, stay with our children—that we have to, in other words. They’re small, sick, need us. We don’t want to lose them, we can say, lose them in both ways, and it’s always taken the two of us to handle them.”

  “And be beaten down and the girls dragged away? I don’t see it. I think we have to do what they want us to.”

  “We could ask graciously, civilly. Quick, we have to come to some final agreement. We can plead with them if that doesn’t work—get on our knees even; anything.”

  “We can do that. I certainly will if it comes to that. But we’ll see when our turn comes.”

  “It’s coming; it’s about to be here. I’m going to beg them first to keep us all together, and if that doesn’t work, then for you to go with the girls. You’ll last longer than I if it’s as bad where they take us as it was in the car.”

  “One of us then will stay with the girls. If they don’t go for it, then each of us with a child. OK, that’s what well say and then insist on until they start getting a little tough.”

  There’s room to move around now. Half the people have left the car. He gets down on his knees and kisses the girls, stands them up between Denise and him and he hugs her and their legs touch the children. “Should I start to worry now, Mother?” Olivia says and Denise says “No, absolutely not, sweetheart—Daddy and I will take care of you both.”

  “May it all be OK,” he whispers in Denise’s ear. “May it.”

  “Come on out of there,” a man shouts. “All of you, out, out—yours isn’t the only car on the train.”

  “Goodbye all you lovely people,” Bischoff says. “We did our best. Now God be with you and everything else that’s good and I hope to see each of you in a warm clean room with tables of food.”

  Howard hands Eva to Denise, picks up Olivia and their rucksacks. “This is how we’ll split the kids if it has to come to it, OK? By weight,” and she nods and they walk out.

  “All right, you,” an officer says to Howard, “bags on the platform and go to that truck, and you, lady, go to that truck with the children.” “No,” she says, “let us stay together. Please, the older girl—” “I said do what I say,” and he grabs Olivia to take her from Howard. Howard pulls her back. “Do that—stop me, and I’ll shoot you right here in the head. Just one shot. That’s all it’ll take.” Howard lets him have Olivia. The officer puts her down beside Denise. “What will happen to them?” Howard says.

  “Next, come on—out with you and down the ramp, bags over there. Richard, get them out faster. You go that way,” to a man coming toward him and points past Howard, “and you two, the same truck,” to two young women. “Go, you both, what are you doing?—with your children and to your trucks,” he says to Denise and Howard. “No more stalling.” She stares at Howard as she drags Olivia along. A soldier tugs at his sleeve and he goes to the other truck. She’s helped up into hers with the girls. Some more men and young women climb into his truck. He can’t see her or the girls in her truck anymore. It’s almost filled and then it’s filled and it drives off. “Denise,” he screams. Many men are screaming women’s names and the names and pet names of children, and the people in that truck, older people, mothers, children, are screaming to the people in his truck, and a few people on the platform are screaming to one or the other truck. Denise’s truck disappears behind some buildings. He can hear it and then he can’t. Then his truck’s filled and a soldier raps the back of it with a stick and it pulls out. They’ll never get our belongings to us, he thinks. What will the girls change in to? It makes no difference to him what he has. They’ll give him a uniform or he’ll make do. But Denise, the children. Denise, the children. “Oh no,” and he starts sobbing. Someone pats his back. “Fortunately, I had no one,” the man says.

  14

  _______

  Frog Takes a Swim

  Olivia doesn’t want to play on the beach anymore, wants to go into the water but not to swim. “Just a little more till I finish this paragraph,” “No,” “All right,” and puts down his book, walks her into a part of the lake where the sun is, lifts her under the arms and swings her above the water. “More, more, this is fun,” and he does it some more, then says he can’t, too tiring, let’s rest, stands her up. “Too cold,” she says. Holds her arms out. “Again.” “Give me a few seconds.” Looks out to the lake. Sailboat way off, or something with a sail. People jumping off the ledge into the water, but so far away that even from their shrieking he can’t tell if they’re kids or adults and which are male and which are female. Lily pads, closer, with flowers all over. Picks her up, swings her in a circle, her feet skimming the water, then her legs cutting through it. “Whee, this is great, better than swimming. Know what it reminds me of, Daddy?” and he indicates he doesn’t and she says “Twirling around and getting dizzy dancing,” and he does this till his arms ache, says “No more for now, I’m all hot from it, let me take a swim,” stands in place holding her till he doesn’t feel he’ll fall if he walks, walks to shore and sets her down. “How can we do this—for me to swim? I can’t just leave you.” “Yes you can. I’ll stay and play here.” “No, someone has to watch you,” while he’s drying her. “We’ll ask someone here to—would you mind that?” “Do I have to stay with that person?” “No. Just that if that person says come away from the edge of the water, for some reason—a leech, maybe, or motorboat being put in—well, you do that, but that person won’t have time to say much. I’ll only go out for thirty strokes, kick my feet a few times while I’m on my back out there and maybe dive down once, and then swim in, a little slower than when I swam out as I’ll probably do the breaststroke coming back, if that’s it—you know, where the arms sort of push the water underwater. Like this—how could I be unsure what it’s called?” and brings his arms to his chest, spreads them wide, brings them to his chest. “That’s a stroke, like the crawl’s a stroke,” and demonstrates that one, even the breathing. “I think you said the first one’s a breaststroke because it’s your breast you’re hitting.” “Right. So, which person looks good to look after you?” “Her. She asked me what I was building with my mud before, and she was nice.” Sitting by the beach, around twenty-five, noticed her when they walked down here and several times when he looked up from his book to see her reading hers, slim and nicely built from what he can see in the seated position she’s been in since they got here, doesn’t look like a local, magazine, travel and week-in-review sections of last Sunday’s Times held down by a hairbrush and sandals. “OK, let’s ask her.”

  T
hey go over. “Excuse me, but I’d like to—my name’s Howard Tetch and this—” “Oh sure—Olivia. We chatted before. She’s so pretty and well behaved, and sharp?—oh boy.” “She is, which’ll make what I want to say easier. I’d like to take a quick dip—” “Go ahead, 111 watch her.” “But a very quick one. Thirty strokes out, thirty back or so, maybe a little whale movement on my back out there, but that’s all. And she knows—” “Really, don’t worry. Even if she can’t swim or hold her breath underwater, she can go in up to her waist. I’ll be right here, and I’m a WSI.” I’m sorry, don’t know…” “Water safety instructor. I’ve two lifesaving badges, giving me the authority to save two adults of up to three hundred pounds total at one time.” “Well, couldn’t be better. OK, kid. Up to your knees, we’ll say, but no higher and not for long. I don’t want you catching a chill—getting one.” “Anyhow, I don’t want to go in again. I want to play here.” “Fine—By the way, your name’s what?—just in case I get a cramp out there and have to shout for help. Only kidding—but what?” “Lita Reinekin.” “Thanks, then, Mrs., Ms., Reinekin.” “Lita,” holding out her hand. “Lita,” shaking it. “OK, sweetie, Daddy’s going in. Be good. Do what—” “I will,” and she goes to her pail and things on the beach.

  He throws the towel to their place on the grass, says to the woman “Think she needs her shirt?—nah, she’s OK,” walks in to the water, turns around. Olivia’s sitting in the muddy sand, her legs wrong, putting her two rubber adult figures into the pail. Woman’s a few feet from her, book closed on a finger holding the page, he presumes, looking at Olivia. He splashes water behind his knees and on the back of his neck. Why’s he doing that? He already adjusted to it when he was swinging her around. “Put your feet out, Olivia,” and without looking at him, she does. He walks out some more, dives in, swims. Counts ten strokes, turns around. She’s still playing on the beach. Should have told her to stay in the sun part of the beach, but he won’t be out long. Swims fifteen strokes, turns around. Can’t see her so well now. “Olivia … hi,” he yells. “Hi, Olivia.” She doesn’t respond. He waves—maybe she’s looking at him on the sly, which she does. The woman waves at him. Very nice, he thinks, she’s very nice. And good-looking, and that long and what’s probably a strong body. But WSI? Two people and three hundred pounds? How would she know what any two people weighed when they were drowning? People she didn’t know, in other words. If they weighed more than that and one or both of them drowned, would she be penalized in some way for having tried to save them? Maybe he’s missing the point. Ten more strokes, then thinks: give yourself ten more. Likes being this far out when nobody else is here. Ten more, looks around. People on the ledge seem to have left, sailboat’s not around anymore, no motorboats today either. Hates those things. If one came close and didn’t see him, what then? Yell, scream, wave frantically, then dive deep if it kept coming. When would he start diving? Depend how fast the boat was going, but something would tell him now. What an awful thought though, motorboat running smack into someone and maybe slicing off an arm or leg, and he shakes his head to get rid of it. Looks to shore. Can scarcely make out anything. The woman, he thinks, where she was sitting, and possibly that speck’s Olivia, but he’s kidding himself. Some other movement on the grassy slope above them, really just blurs, and what looks like a light-colored blanket by a tree, but can’t tell if anyone’s on it. So quiet out here. Nothing as peaceful anywhere. Maybe the top of a secluded mountain where one sees nothing but trees and other mountains, and on the same kind of day: mild temperature, light breeze, mostly clear sky. Should get back. But she’ll be OK. Gets on his back and looks at a bird, probably a hawk, circling way up in the sky. But time to get back. If she were calling him, would he even hear? And he’s much farther out than he usually goes. There’s always the chance of a sudden leg or stomach cramp, though he knows how to uncramp them. A motorboat could suddenly approach, even that sailboat, and his sense of timing in diving might not be as good as he thinks.